Chloe Potter, the Beginning of a Witch
by Tiny Teacup
Summary: AU. What if James and Lily Potter had had a daughter instead of a son, and what if Petunia Dursley had some long kept secrets? Join a young Chloe Potter as she starts a new life full of Magic.
1. Chapter 1

Chloe Potter had always thought she was a rather normal girl. As far as she could tell, there wasn't a single remarkable thing about her. The only things that made her a little different than your typical girl seemed to be things that made the other children think she was weird.

She needed to wear glasses to see properly, as she was near-sighted, and for the first few years of her life she was teased about her glasses by the other children at school.

The other thing she got a lot of teasing for was the strange scar on her forehead, just below her hairline. It was curiously shaped like a lightning bolt. She could never keep it hidden behind her fringe.

Her home life seemed normal enough, except for the fact that she lived with Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon and their son, Dudley. Aunt Petunia was her mother's sister. She would tell Chloe, whenever she happened to ask, that they had taken her in when she was a little over a year old. This seemed to be the only thing that Aunt Petunia didn't like to talk about. Whenever Chloe asked about it she would always repeat the same explanation in stiff sentences before saying that proper, polite little girls didn't ask such questions. Chloe would agree with this, while secretly thinking that there was nothing wrong with her having a healthy curiosity about her parents. She couldn't really remember them, but sometimes if she thought about it really hard for a good long while, she thought she could picture their faces with her mind's eye.

The images in her mind were likely half made-up, at the least. Chloe supposed she really just tried to imagine two people that looked like her in different ways. She could never hold on to the imagined image of her parents for very long before it was gone again. She would often spend minutes alone in front of the bathroom mirror, gazing at herself. It wasn't out of vanity that she did this, but out of curiosity. She'd learned a little bit about genetics at school, and she wondered which of her parents had given her her green eyes, and which had bestowed upon her the unruly dark hair that Aunt Petunia often complained about. Chloe wore it long and wavy, because when it was cut short it stuck out all over the place. When it was long, it became sort of wavy and was less awkward. Aunt Petunia used to brush her hair for her at night before tucking her into bed, but she stopped doing it after one night when she had accidentally called Chloe by her mother's name.

Other than that, Aunt Petunia had always been perfectly nice to her, always making sure she had clothes to wear and food to eat, and on the rare occasion that Uncle Vernon took Dudley out somewhere without Aunt Petunia, they would have a 'girl's day' and go shopping.

When Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia went out together, they would often take their son Dudley with them but leave Chloe at a neighbor's house to be babysat. In the almost eleven years she had lived with them, Chloe had learned that Uncle Vernon didn't like her very much at all. When they thought she and Dudley were sound asleep Chloe often heard him arguing with Aunt Petunia about spending so much time with her. "It's such a waste." He would say. "When you have a perfectly _normal_ child that you should be raising."

He had passed this mentality onto his son, who would sometimes whine or throw a tantrum if he thought Aunt Petunia was treating Chloe better than she was treating him. He hadn't done it as much lately after Aunt Petunia had yelled at him one day, something she rarely ever did. He'd been so shocked that he'd gone quiet immediately, and he had had such a funny look on his face that Chloe had the hardest time not laughing. Dudley had been further cowed a few minutes later when Aunt Petunia didn't offer an apology, as she usually did when she was sharp with him.

They were having lunch one afternoon in June when Uncle Vernon put down his newspaper and started rifling through the mail that Chloe have retrieved from the door only minutes earlier.

"Post card here from Marge." He said to Aunt Petunia. Marge was Uncle Vernon's sister. She was like her brother and didn't like Chloe the tiniest little bit.

"She says one of her dogs has taken ill and she's coming home from her vacation early. She'll be able to come for your birthday now, isn't that wonderful, son?"

Dudley grunted noncommittally around a mouthful of scrambled eggs. It was going to be his birthday in less than a week. Uncle Vernon had hidden the many gifts he'd bought for his son in Chloe's closet, telling her very crossly that she wasn't to lay a finger on any of them. Dudley was likely to give some of them to her after a while, after he had broken or grew tired of them.

Chloe hadn't ever told anyone, not even Aunt Petunia, but sometimes she would put Dudley's broken toys in her closet or up on the shelf in the corner of her room and then she'd wake up the next day and they would look as if they were brand new. She had learned that if Dudley ever saw her with the repaired toys that he would take them back again, but she didn't particularly mind when he did that. Most of his toys were the sort that were mostly just for boys, and she didn't particularly like them.

Her favorite thing in all of Little Whinging was perhaps the pretty little porcelain doll that Aunt Petunia had given her on her birthday when she turned nine. Dudley had gone into her room once when she wasn't there and broken the doll, leaving the pieces on the floor. Chloe hadn't even known about it until he had blurted out to her what he had done at the dinner table, wondering why she wasn't upset. She had taken him up to her room then and shown him the intact doll, standing next to the mirror on her dresser. After that, Aunt Petunia had given him a stern talking to about making up stories and he had sulked for days.

The rest of the week passed by quickly, though by the time it was the day before Dudley's birthday Chloe had started to wonder if anymore could fit into her closet. Uncle Vernon had bought so many presents for Dudley that Aunt Petunia had actually made him return some of them, as she didn't want their son to end up completely spoiled.

Dudley had made it clear that he didn't want Chloe to come out with them for his birthday celebration, but they couldn't leave her with her usual sitter. Mrs. Figg, the woman down the street that usually watched her when the Dursleys went out, had fallen and broken her leg. Aunt Petunia had run across the street and inquired of the woman of the household if her teenage daughter would like to make a little extra pocket money. The woman had asked her daughter, and the daughter had agreed. That was how Chloe came to spend an uneventful afternoon playing boardgames with Imogen Gibbs.

When it was almost dinnertime, Aunt Marge arrived at the Dursley house in a terrible mood. She had refused to let Imogen leave, as she didn't want to be left alone with Chloe. The girl and her younger charge sat very quietly on the living room sofa while Aunt Marge had her tea in a chair nearby, ignoring their very existence.

Imogen was relieved when the Dursleys came home shortly there after. She gave Chloe a friendly wave and left after Aunt Petunia had paid her.

"She wanted to pawn this one off on me." Aunt Marge grumbled, jerking a thumb in Chloe's direction. "I wouldn't have it."

Uncle Vernon got Dudley sat down on the living room sofa and then made no less than four trips up and down the stairs to retrieve all of Dudley's birthday presents, including some of the ones that Aunt Petunia had told him to take back to the store. Aunt Petunia made no comment about this as she watched her son rip the wrappings off his gifts with chubby hands. Once he had finished with Uncle Vernon's gifts, he went on to some things that Aunt Marge had brought him back from her vacation. Chloe knew better than to ask if there was anything for her, because of course there wouldn't be.

Aunt Petunia had dinner delivered from Dudley's favorite restaurant. The five of them sat around the dining room table to eat it. Chloe thought it was quite good. She was quietly eating and thinking about nothing in particular until she caught a bit of something Aunt Marge was saying.

"I'd keep your eye on that girl, if I were you, Vernon. She looks like she's going to grow up to be a real delinquent. Not that much more can be expected of her, eh? Look at where she came from, those parents of hers that you never talk about. I only met her just the once, your sister, Petunia, but I'm sure you can agree that she was a bit strange. The way she carried on with that boy, whatever his name was. Bit of a harlot, at any rate, and her daughter will likely be a bit of the same."

Chloe was silently raging, as much as a little girl is able to rage. Not even Uncle Vernon had spoken so poorly about her parents, as far as she knew. He preferred to act as if his wife had never had a sister in the first place.

Nobody was more surprised than Chloe when Aunt Petunia slapped Aunt Marge across the face. Perhaps Aunt Petunia herself, for she looked quite stunned.

Aunt Marge had a violent glimmer in her eyes as she raised a hand to the red welt on her cheek. Vernon looked between the two of them before glaring at his wife.

"Petunia, what's gotten into you?" He spluttered.

For a moment, Petunia looked as if she regretted what she had done, but then her eyes hardened and she set her jaw firmly. Wordlessly, she withdrew from the sleeve of her blouse what looked to Chloe like a long, polished stick.

"You know, I've wanted to do this for years. It's a little early yet, but I don't imagine a couple months will matter in the long run."

She pointed her wand at Aunt Marge, for Chloe had realized that that was what it was. Aunt Petunia muttered something that Chloe couldn't understand, and with the faintest of popping sounds Aunt Marge disappeared.

Chloe stared at the place where Aunt Marge had been, her mouth open. After a few moments, she slid her eyes to Uncle Vernon and Dudley, who were eating as if nothing out of the ordinary had just happened.

Uncle Vernon looked at her with his beady eyes and scowled. "What are you looking at with that slack-jawed expression? Eat your dinner before I think twice about continuing to feed you!"

Chloe was about to quietly ask Aunt Petunia what had happened, as she still had her wand out. There was no time for that, however. Aunt Petunia leveled her wand at Uncle Vernon and said the same string of nonsense words that she had said before. Just as with Aunt Marge, Uncle Vernon was no more.

Aunt Petunia then turned to look at Chloe. Chloe gulped and squeezed her eyes shut tightly, expecting to join Uncle Vernon and Aunt Marge where ever Aunt Petunia had sent them, or perhaps she would become nothing and simply cease to be.

After an unbearably long minute, Chloe didn't feel at all like she had been banished to somewhere else. She could still feel the dining room chair under her and her feet were still firmly planted on the floor. She cautiously opened one eye and looked at Aunt Petunia, who had turned away and was sagging in her chair. Chloe thought she looked relieved.

"Aunt Petunia, what happened to Uncle Vernon and Aunt Marge?" Chloe asked quietly, afraid that Aunt Petunia would simply tell her not to ask questions.

Instead, her aunt turned to her and smiled. "As far as the world is concerned, Vernon and Marge Dursley never existed, and truly they shouldn't have." She leaned in close to look Chloe in the eye. "Chloe, your uncle and his sister weren't real. They were the product of magic, a spell I did with this wand many years ago. Can you believe that?"

Chloe was surprised to find that the idea of magic wasn't shocking in the slightest. "You might have done a better job of it, then." She said, feeling bold. "They were simply awful."

Aunt Petunia laughed then, in such a carefree way that Chloe thought she had never seen her aunt so happy.

"That they were, that they were. I was inexperienced at the time, but I wouldn't hear of anyone doing my work for me. I'm afraid I didn't cast the spell perfectly. If I had, Uncle Vernon would have been a lot nicer, and I daresay a bit better looking as well. As for Marge, I'm not exactly sure where she came into the picture. She didn't exist at first, but one day Vernon just started talking about her in a very matter of fact way, and shortly after that she showed up for a visit. I was never quite sure how she came about, but I'm glad to be rid of them both."

It was then that Aunt Petunia launched into a story. Chloe's parents had been killed not by a car accident, but by a very evil wizard. Chloe's father had also been a wizard, a good one, and her mother had been a witch just as Aunt Petunia was.

After they had been killed, the evil wizard who had killed them tried to kill Chloe, but ended up hurting himself instead. Aunt Petunia told her that nobody was sure to this day what exactly had happened, only that Chloe was the only person ever to survive a very particular curse that was supposed to kill you the instant it was cast on you.

Aunt Petunia said that she came straight away to collect Chloe when she heard about her sister's passing. She had always promised that if anything ever happened to her sister and her sister's husband that she would take care of their children, should they have any at the time. A few days after that, shortly after a funeral for James and Lily Potter, a powerful wizard came to Aunt Petunia.

"Professor Dumbledore." Chloe thought that was a very strange name. "He thought it was near impossible that the wizard who killed your parents was gone for good. He thought it best that we go into hiding. Where better than the muggle world." Aunt Petunia gave a snort of a laugh, then explained that 'muggle' was what magical people called non-magical people.

"We thought surely that if he-who-must-not-be-named were to return, he would look for a woman living alone with a young girl. So I created Vernon Dursley, and he was my husband from that point on."

"If they're not supposed to have existed, how come I still remember them? Uncle Vernon and Dudley didn't even blink an eye when Aunt Marge disappeared." Chloe wondered curiously.

Aunt Petunia gave her a broad grin. "That's because, my dear Chloe, Marge was right about something." Chloe frowned at her, causing her aunt to give a girlish little giggle. "You're like your mother. You're a witch."

"You don't say..." Chloe gulped. She hardly had time to think about it before a voice that didn't belong to Aunt Petunia piped up.

"Yes, we're very lucky, the three of us, to be able to remember those two horrible specimens." The person's tone was dry. Chloe turned to look at the voice's owner in shock.

"Dudley?" She gasped.


	2. Chapter 2

The boy who sat at the other end of the table looked nothing like the cousin Chloe had grown up with for nearly eleven years. For starters, where he had just moments ago been rotund, there was now barely anything to him. It was if he had been a great balloon that someone had soundlessly deflated. Dudley's face was still vaguely recognizable, but Chloe thought that might be because he looked more like Aunt Petunia than he had before. If one were to take Aunt Petunia and make her look a bit more boyish, that's what Chloe thought Dudley resembled.

"What happened to Dudley?" Chloe muttered to her Aunt out of the corner of her mouth. While Dudley had likely heard her, he didn't say anything. He sat quietly with his hands folded politely in his lap.

Petunia looked at her son with raised eyebrows, not looking particularly confused but just a little surprised.

"I wasn't really sure what was going to happen to him, to be perfectly honest." She responded. "I never wanted to have a child with Vernon Dursley, understand, but he could be rather... persistent at times." She scowled for only a moment before she turned her gaze on her son.

"How are you feeling, dear?" She asked him.

The new Dudley gave a quirk of a smile. "Fine, thanks for asking, mum. Good supper, I'm absolutely bursting. May I be excused, please?"

Aunt Petunia smiled and nodded, waving him off. He grinned cheerfully at his mother and cousin before scampering from the kitchen. Chloe listened for the familiar creaking sounds of Dudley going up the stairs, realizing belatedly that they would never come.

"Normally, he likely would have disappeared along with your Uncle, once I'd gotten rid of him. So I would suppose, anyway, but I knew as soon as I held him in my arms after he was born that I couldn't let that happen. It took me a couple of years of studying in secret, but I finally found a combination of spells and potions that would protect him and keep him alive once the spell that made Vernon had ended. You won't remember, of course, but one of the potions made him terribly sick when you were around two, the both of you. At any rate, without Vernon having existed, he couldn't have fathered a child, and so the magic appears to have reconstructed Dudley using me as a base. It seems to have done him some good both physically and mentally, not saying that I think I'm a classic beauty or anything."

"You've been doing magic all this time, and none of us ever noticed?" Chloe's eyes widened. Except for the strange things that always seemed to happen to her specifically, she'd never noticed anything out of the ordinary around the Dursley home.

"Oh, surely not. I'm sure it's obvious I wasn't good at making people with magic, and Vernon Dursley was about as bad as you could get. If he had found me out, I would have had to end the spell that made him exist too early, and we would have been in a real pickle. I couldn't very well alter his memories, as they weren't actually real. The magic I did on Dudley, almost nine years ago, was my last until today. I'd magic all of the dinner dishes clean right now if I didn't think any of the neighbors would see, I'm just itching to do a good spell." Aunt Petunia glanced around before flicking her wand. The blinds on the windows closed. With another motion, the dishes flew to the kitchen sink with a minor amount of clattering. The water faucets turned of their own accord. Before long a soapy sponge was cleaning each dish before it floated into a drying rack on the counter.

Chloe watched with more than a small amount of amusement. She would have happily kept on watching until all the dishes had washed themselves, but she was hit by a great yawn only halfway through the automated chore. Apparently watching people get banished from existence was tiring work.

Aunt Petunia placed a hand on her shoulder. "Go up to bed, dear."

Chloe nodded mutely, stifling a smaller yawn with her hand before shuffling to the stairs and then up to the hallway on the second floor of the house. As she walked past the door of Dudley's room, he pulled it open and tugged her lightly inside. She gave him a wide-eyed look, unsure of what this new Dudley might do. He certainly didn't look as if he were going to pick on her, like the old Dudley would have. All the same, she prepared herself for some kind of biting comment.

Instead, her cousin smiled at her and pulled her over to the corner. "I think we've time for a video game before bed."

He gave her an excited smile and handed her a joystick before taking a seat on the floor in front of his small television set. She sat next to him, no longer feeling quite as tired as she had been just minutes earlier. Even though they had lived together virtually all of their lives, she had never once been invited into Dudley's room for any reason, let alone to play with his expensive video game equipment. Not being a Dursley had done wonders for Dudley's personality.

They played until Aunt Petunia told them to get ready for bed. Chloe had just won another round, bringing her to a draw with Dudley. She suspected he had let her win so that they would be on even footing by the time they had to stop playing.

Days in the Dursley house were more cheerful after that than Chloe could ever remember them being. It wasn't even really the Dursley house anymore, for Aunt Petunia had taken back her maiden name of Evans and Dudley already thought that that had always been his name, for he had no recollection of his former father.

The coming weeks passed by quickly. Aunt Petunia was happier than she'd ever been, free of Vernon Dursley. Dudley was nothing like the ill-tempered boy he had been. Chloe had grown quite close to him in the month since his birthday.

Aunt Petunia had been telling them stories about her experiences going to a school for wizards called Hogwarts, as well as stories about Chloe's parents while they were in school. It seemed that Aunt Petunia hadn't really cared for James Potter, Chloe's father, but they had learned to get along for Chloe's mother's sake.

Aunt Petunia was two years older than her sister, so she had started her third year of school when Chloe's mother first started. They had both been in Gryffindor, one of the Hogwarts school houses. They had gotten along better than most other siblings at the school, at least according to Aunt Petunia's stories. Apparently they had grown apart slightly after Lily had met James Potter, but Petunia didn't begrudge her sister her romantic entanglement. She explained that she likely would have had a boyfriend herself back then except she had been almost painfully shy.

It was a week before Chloe's eleventh birthday. Aunt Petunia had just been telling them one of her school stories, about some of the pranks Chloe's father and his friends used to pull. Chloe heard the sound of the mail flap on the door. It was strange, as they had already received the post that day. Chloe went to investigate with some encouragement from Aunt Petunia, who had a knowing smile. There were two heavy parchment envelopes on the doormat, the one on top was addressed 'Mr. Dudley Evans,' the second 'Ms. Chloe Potter.'" Followed by the address of their home.

Chloe went back into the kitchen and sat down in the seat she'd vacated hardly a minute earlier. She handed Dudley his letter and placed hers on the table, examining it curiously.

"Ah, your Hogwarts letters. I was wondering what the hold up was with yours, Dudley. I suppose the spells I deactivated on your birthday were interfering. There must have been some left over magic floating around, but I expect it's cleared off now." Aunt Petunia looked between the two of them. "Well, go on then. Open them!"

Chloe and Dudley looked at each other for a moment before opening their letters by breaking the wax seal on the flap. There was more heavy parchment inside.

_"Dear Ms. Potter," _The letter began, as she supposed all letters addressed to her would, unless she got married someday. _"We are pleased to inform you that you have a place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."_

The letter went on to inform her about the start of term and also included a list of necessary equipment for first year students. Chloe read it all through and then read it a second time. She was really going to go to a magic school!

After Aunt Petunia had started talking about it, Chloe had thought it might be leading up to her being told that she would also be going to the school, like her mother before her. She hadn't been sure, though. After all, they had been living as muggles for years, and Chloe hadn't been sure if that was going to change even though Uncle Vernon was gone.

Dudley seemed pleased as well. "Do we really get to go, Mum?"

Aunt Petunia nodded. Chloe and Dudley grinned at each other. If anyone were to ask either of them, they would have said the two of them were friends. Chloe was happy that they wouldn't be separated for most of the year. The boy had become her only friend. It was ironic considering that he had been in part responsible for her not having any friends to begin with, as he had been quite a terrific bully. People thought befriending his cousin might make him go after them.

Chloe glanced again at the list of school supplies. "Aunt Petunia, where in the world do we get all of this stuff? It doesn't look like anything you could buy in a normal store, or even some of those new age shops..."

Aunt Petunia simply beamed at her. "You'll see."

That was the last Aunt Petunia said about it, no matter how much Chloe and Dudley begged her to explain. She just said that they would be going shopping on Chloe's birthday, to get their school supplies and a present for Chloe. Since seeing where witches and wizards shopped seemed like a rather exciting adventure, Chloe didn't complain a bit about having to think about school on her birthday.

Just after lunch on the last day of July, the three of them got into what was now Aunt Petunia's car and Aunt Petunia drove them to London. She parked the car on the side of a street. Chloe felt silly for feeling immediately disappointed when she didn't see a magical mall upon stepping out of the car. What she did see was a rundown pub. She also saw that the other people walking past it didn't seem to see it at all, like it was so rundown that it wasn't worth looking at. Aunt Petunia started toward the door of the pub. Chloe looked at Dudley, who shrugged. They both followed Aunt Petunia into the dimly lit interior of the building.

Aunt Petunia gave a polite nod to the man behind the bar, who returned the gesture. Other than that, nobody in the bar paid attention to them. They left through a door in the back of the room that took them to a small grass yard enclosed by a brick wall.

"You're going to like this." Aunt Petunia said, smilingly pulling her wand from her handbag and tapping it against a spot on the brick wall.


End file.
